Chris Kelly: Obama fought hard to win Scranton's heart, but now all it's good for is an anecdote

Editor's note: Once considered a "must-have bellwether" of a "key battleground state," Scranton isn't even an also-ran in this year's presidential election. Today, a spurned city vents its purple spleen to the Heartbreaker-In-Chief...

Dear Barack,

I'm sorry to be sending this now, what with you down in the polls and clinging to Big Bird like a huge, yellow life preserver. It's just been so long since we've seen each other face-to-face, and a girl who's been clinically diagnosed as chronically distressed by a small army of specialists needs a little attention every once in a while.

Is that really so much to ask?

I'm lonely, B., and you don't seem to notice, let alone care. You're so distant, I'm beginning to wonder if I ever meant anything to you at all. I know you haven't shown much love to any Pennsylvania city this election season, but I thought We had Something Special. Remember 2008? I do. It was the first time since the Industrial Revolution that I felt pretty, like the belle of a ball called in my honor. I was an Anthracite Snow White and you were Prince Too Charming to Resist.

It was magical. Written in the stars. Once upon a time and Happily Ever After. You said you felt it, too. I guess Forever is a lot shorter than it used to be.

Hillary warned me about getting mixed up with you. She said you were all pretty talk and empty promises and would leave me cold waiting by the phone at 3 a.m. for a call that never comes.

I waited, Barack. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I'm still waiting. "Scranton" sounds so sexy when you say it. Elegant. Refined. Romantic. When Joe Biden says "Scranton," it has a hollow ring. I get that he was born here, but he was only 10 when his family moved away. That was in 1952. Truman was president. The "Today" show was just slightly newer than television. Maureen Dowd, Liam Neeson and David Hasselhoff were born. Stalin was still running Russia. The Dodgers were still in Brooklyn.

A lot has happened here since, and most of it regrettable, especially recently. I was born in 1866, and I'm not getting any younger. For most of that time, I have selected Democrats to run the show, and today I can't pay my bills without soaking taxpayers who are barely getting by. I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers, but I am now reduced to demanding their help.

The latest doomed funding scheme of the Democrats I perpetually put in charge is to tax the people who drive my economy but have no say in my politics. Commuters are my lifeblood, but council and the mayor would rather bleed them dry than make any of the hard choices countless other governments and private businesses have had to accept during the Great Recession. It's like cutting out a heart to save the atrophied organs it struggled to feed.

Crazy, right? And yet it's happening, right here in the place "The Road to the White House" once so famously ran through.

I see you had some well-timed good news last week - the national unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent, the lowest since you took office. That's great, but around here the unemployment rate is 9.4 percent - highest in Pennsylvania and the only rate in the state above 9 percent.

People here need jobs, B., and I can't provide them. Maybe you can't, either, and that's why you stay away.

Or maybe it's not you. Maybe it's me. It seems I have always picked losers. I went with Al Gore in 2000. He was handsome and smart, but had zero personality and was always talking down to me. It was like dating a mannequin with a Ph.D. in B.S.

Kerry and Edwards came straight here from the 2004 Democratic National Convention, but they showed up about three hours late and many of the thousands of supporters who turned out to greet them had to be treated for heatstroke.

MEMO TO FUTURE CANDIDATES: Nearly killing voters so dedicated to you that they crowd a city square on the Hottest Day of the Year is No Way To Win the White House.

John Kerry seems like a nice guy, but it was never going to work between us. He didn't even know how to order a cheesesteak. Swiss cheese? Really? Why not ask for a smattering of Grey Poupon and a crystal claret of French Chablis? A half-liter of Chateau de Snooty, my good man, and are these free-range onions?

Mon dieu!

And what a creep John Edwards turned out to be. I should have known he was a wolf when he made an indecent proposal to me with his poor wife sitting just a few feet away. He sees two Americas, all right - one in which he is a faithful husband and father and the one the rest of us live in.

I know you hate it when I bring him up, but why can't you be more like Bill? He doesn't visit often, but when he does, it's a party. When he says he loves me, I know he doesn't mean it, but I just don't care. If you bump into the big lug out on the trail, tell him to call me. And Hillary doesn't need to know, OK?

If you need space right now, I guess I understand. But I have needs, too. My Republican friends say I should dump you. He's just not that into you, yada, yada... They say that first debate with Mitt is proof, and maybe they have a point. If you can't defend yourself, how can I trust you to stand up for me?

Maybe a square-jawed square is what I really need. Someone who's home every night and doesn't drink, smoke or even swear. Maybe all this time I've been chasing Eddie Haskell, I should have been settling for Ward Cleaver. Then again, Mitt hasn't shown me any love recently, either.

I'm so confused, B. It's hard to think straight when you keep sending mixed signals. I've suffered my share of indignities, but I won't be taken for granted. I may not have the curves of Cleveland, the curls of Colorado or the tan of Miami, but I am nobody's safety date.

The pollsters say the candidate who wins women will win this election, and for once I think they just might be right. As always, the ball is in your court, but between now and the Big Dance, you need to remember two things: Desperate as I am, I won't wait forever and hell hath no fury like a Scranton scorned.

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, may be a little too in touch with his feminine side. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com, @cjkink on Twitter.

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